


On The Way Home

by flungoutofsomewhere



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Relationship, i have no idea how to use these tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6355786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flungoutofsomewhere/pseuds/flungoutofsomewhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern Carol AU in which Therese is a photography student who meets the electrifying business woman Carol Aird on a flight back home to New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Don’t take any photos of me, Richard, stop, I look tired”

It was 6:30am on a Sunday, Therese had barely slept and was already at the airport to catch her flight back to New York with her college class. She liked San Francisco, even though she could never imagine living in it.

Mrs. Hirsch, her professor in photography, convinced all of her students to take a four day long trip to San Francisco to explore - what was to Mrs. Hirsch - the most inspiring city in the U.S.

“Oh come on Terry, it’s called ‘capturing memories’, you should know that”, Richard eagerly replied.

Richard and her had been together since their first month of college. Therese didn’t find him particularly interesting, and didn’t even appreciate his company too much, but a year into their relationship, she couldn’t bear to break his heart. She felt as if she was using him though, what she most likely did.

Instead of replying, she frowned and provoked an awkward silence between them, which had been interrupted by a classmate of theirs asking Richard something unimportant. Instead of listening to their conversation, she headed to a seat and put in some earplugs.

“We’re boarding, grumpy, come on, time to head back to hell”, Richard had come over to her.

“What?”, it exhaled Therese, confused as to why he tried talking to her.

Richard removed one of her earplugs and repeated “We’re boarding, you wouldn’t want to stay here would you?”

Therese had to hold herself back not replying with “Actually, I would rather”, but she refrained, Richard didn’t deserve her grumpiness.

Their seats were just a row after the first class. Therese would never understand why people spent two or three times the amount of money for their commute. She usually categorised these individuals as arrogant and snobs, people who think they’re better than simple college students like her.

She sat down and tried to avoid conversation with Richard with inspecting the other passengers. The amount of different people taking a flight to New York at 7am intrigued her. She spotted tourists, business men and students. She would have spotted more if her eyes hadn’t stuck with a woman in her early thirties who was entering the plane.

The woman was blonde, wore a very expensive looking trouser suit and her sheer aura exuded wealth. She had Therese didn’t understand why she was so weirdly intrigued by this woman, didn’t understand why she couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t explain why she was so drawn to her. The woman was perfect to her, she was never as sure about anything as that.

“You have to read this, it’s quite amusing”

A friend of hers, Dannie, who was seated a row behind her, handed her a newspaper article. Therese, still perplexed by what she had just experienced, read it half-heartedly and faked a short laugh to satisfy him. When she looked up from the newspaper, the woman seemed to have disappeared.

With a quiet sigh, she opened the book she had in bag and tried to start reading. Therese had to admit that she could barely concentrate on the sentences. All she could think of were the facial features of the woman she had just seen. She wasn’t even certain if she wasn’t dreaming. She could wake up in her dorm at any moment, continuing with her simple life. Something told her she wouldn’t though.

“Terry, we’re here”, Richard said, caressing her arms, ruining her hope of it all being a dream.

Apparently she had fallen asleep after being deep in her thoughts. Their airplane just finished parking and people were already hectically trying to leave the plane as fast as possible. Therese looked outside the window, only to be greeted by grey clouds and an even greyer JFK.

She looked into the direction of the first class with the hopes of getting a last glimpse at the mesmerising woman, but she was already gone. With that, she was overwhelmed with a feeling of emptiness she never knew existed until now.


	2. Chapter 2

Therese turned to Richard and got up with a forced smile on her mouth. She knew that the second she’ll step out of this plane, she’ll never see this woman again, that she’ll have to return back to her dorm, carrying on with her boring student life, trying to forget a woman who doesn’t even know she exists. It was naïve to think otherwise, yet she didn’t want to believe herself.

“Terry, where’s your bag?”

They had already exited the airplane, with Therese still being lost into her thoughts. She would do anything to let Richard leave her alone for the rest of the trip home. Therese never particularly cared about him, but she got accustomed to his presence and appreciated his efforts into trying to make their relationship work. All this had changed the moment she glanced at the blonde woman six hours ago.

She hastily returned back to the airplane, where she was greeted by a nice looking stewardess.

“I… I forgot my bag”, it exhaled Therese gaspingly.

The stewardess smiled, nodded and let her pass.

“Where’s my fucking pen?”, Therese heard someone curse whilst on her way to her seat. For a second she was overwhelmed by her own feelings again. Something inside her told her this was the blonde woman, it just had to be her. When she finally saw someone get up from the seats, she realised it had only been a stewardess. Disappointed, she forced herself to carry on walking to her seat to get her bag and leave the plane.

She hurried back and joined Dannie and Richard at the baggage claim. Therese didn’t really care to add anything to their seemingly pointless conversation, so she just stayed silent, stared on the floor, and got lost in thoughts, desperately trying not to think of the mysterious blonde woman.

Therese didn’t understand her fascination with that woman herself. Everything she knew was, that she’d do everything to see her again.

Therese’s suitcase finally appeared on the package conveyor band. She picked it up, accidentally bumping the woman in front of her.

“Oh, I’m sorry”

“For Christ’s sake, can’t you pay a bit more attention.”

The woman raised her head and looked directly at Therese with her piercing grey eyes, making Therese’s heart drop.

“I… ”, Therese was lost of words. She wasn’t prepared for this moment of confrontation.

“Why won’t you just pay more attention next time?”, the woman carried on, giving her a little smile.

Therese wanted to say something, anything back to her, but before she got the chance to, the electrifying woman turned around and was gone. This time, she thought, for good. The feeling of emptiness she felt earlier returned, being even more prevalent now.

Therese tried spotting the woman she knew nothing about in the infinitely big seeming airport. She inspected every single face in hopes of belonging to the woman. She felt stupid for doing so, but she didn’t want to give her up, she couldn’t. 

Richard didn’t seem to notice that Therese stayed quiet throughout almost their entire trip home. She had her headphones plugged in, ignored Richard’s attempt at taking her hand and avoided any kind of conversation. Therese relived the first glance at the woman, the short conversation she had with her. She didn’t want to forget a single detail, she wanted to engrave the moments into her memory.

They arrived at campus at around 7pm. Immediately after arriving, Therese excused herself from her course colleagues, who wanted to crash a party. Therese didn’t even care to say goodbye to Richard, who was seemingly having a good time with his friends. She wasn’t in the mood to get drunk in a place surrounded by people she didn’t care for, not that she ever was. 

Therese was relieved when she entered her room and closed the door behind her. Silence, finally. People sucked energy out of her. She fell onto her bed and closed her eyes. The encounter with the woman still felt so surreal to her. At a poor attempt to shift her thoughts away from the woman, she decided to take a shower. That could help her rationalise her thoughts at leat.

In the hallway she spotted two women holding hands. She looked at them intrigued, and before she knew it they looked back at her. Therese turned incredibly red, and passed them with her head lowered.

After a surprisingly refreshing shower, she returned back to her room, which was far messier than she remembered. To temporarily evade the tedious task that was cleaning, she opened her window and inhaled the nice, refreshing evening summer air. She had made it a habit of hers to observe people who were crossing that part of her university. People truly fascinated her. 

Whilst she was observing the usual hectic university students who were trying to get home as fast as possible, her gaze fixated on someone she vaguely remembered, who was accompanied by a professor. When she finally got a chance to look directly at the person’s face, Therese gasped and abruptly jumped back from the window.


End file.
